Political vigilantism must end

Indiscipline has always been a concern to the populace, especially in the Fourth Republic, and successive governments have made various attempts to build a disciplined society.

We recall the efforts of the late former Vice President, Aliu Mahama, who, seeing the indiscipline in society, embarked on a pet project and campaigned to his last day in office against the canker.

Many people agree that the suspicion characterising election activities lead the various political parties to form their own security groups to advance their cause and interests.

These political guard groups, otherwise referred to as political vigilantes, have visited mayhem on all manner of groups and people including their own. It seems, however, that the political leadership has refused or utterly failed to bring these groups to order because of the roles they played to ensure their successes both at the polls and in the general political organisation.

In the aftermath of the 2016 general elections, political vigilantes aligned to the ruling party have been at their worst carrying out acts to the consternation of many decent-minded Ghanaians.

Some of the acts escalated to assaults on police personnel and state institutions, and reached a zenith when members of the Delta Force, an NPP political vigilante group, freed their compatriots standing trial for raiding the Ashanti Regional Security Council, and assaulting the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator.

These acts of lawlessness are probably a result of a feeling of a sense of entitlement or frustration informed by  promises made by politicians to them ahead of the elections.

The refusal of the political leadership to bring these groups to order, might have created the impression for these groups that they are the monarchs of all that they survey.

Although the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has, on a number of occasions, admonished these groups to cease their acts or be made to face the rigours of the law, they have not budged and continue to take the law into their hands and do as they will.

It had probably got to a zenith and people had become disillusioned and thrown their hands in the air in despair.

But last Thursday, the President cracked the whip - he suspended the Upper West Regional Minister, Alhaji Suleiman Alhassan, for his role in the release of persons who raided the offices of the National Disaster Management Organisation.

The Daily Graphic commends the President for that bold step. We recognise the fact that the step is to allow investigations into the matter. But it surely has sent a strong signal to his own party and close associates that enough is enough and that they cannot hold the nation to ransom any longer.

The action of the suspended Regional Minister brings to the fore a number of issues. Can the police not be allowed to be  independent in such criminal matters that it had to take the intervention of the President for the right thing to be done?

Again, is our security as a nation guaranteed when the police tend to be taking instructions from above, in this case from the regional minister?

Perhaps, it is time to review the practice where politicians chair regional and district security committees so that the police will not feel obliged to obey their orders, if such orders have the tendency to compromise peace in the community.